Hope you all had a fantastic Canada Day, and for our dear American friends, a festive Fourth of July as well. Something else happened on Canada Day, which is a little something we like to call the Hella Sexy Tax, or HST. Since this now applies to some things that it didn’t before, such as food, some prices rose. However, because the AMS is broke as hell and now paying their employees minimum wage, they increased prices above the HST. This makes sense in most cases, where they simply rounded the price up.

Big Insider Daddy himself, Neal Yonson, decided to deem this an Issue That Only Sorta Matters and contribute to Sparkles R Us.

Mmmmmmbzzzrrrrr…..

Even though the HST is actually 3% lower than the current tax on alcohol, prices are still going up ~7.5% at the Pit, Pendulum and Gallery. The cheapest regular-priced pitcher will run you $14.50. Thank god for Tuesdays at the Gallery…oh, Gallery, we miss you. Amazingly, this means the cheapest pitcher on campus will still be at Mahoney’s—you know, the bar not run by students. Why is Hatchet Lager so cheap? Can we buy super cheap kegs of it for parties? Why won’t Molson return any of Neal’s dozen emails on the subject?

Blue Chip Cookies

The price of coffee is going up about 10% on brewed coffee and 4% on barista drinks. If you don’t already bring your own mug, this is the perfect time to start. You’ll save 25 cents every single time, and they have a buy-10-get-1-free stamp card. Suggestion to the AMS: print the cards on pink next year, and make the stamp design a unicorn. The increased business will take care of the structural deficit in no time.

Blue Chip is the black sheep of AMS businesses because the listed prices don’t include tax. This results in things costing weird amounts that don’t necessarily end in 5 or 0. Which means pennies. And anyone who has ever handled cash will agree: pennies are the DEVIL.

Honour Roll

Having watched people move through the Honour Roll line, no one actually looks at any of the prices. Reporting that prices are going up 3.5% seems pointless. Telling you that Ben Cappellacci broke it down with VP Students himself, @bowtiebrian, seems much more important.

Pi R Squared, or The Pizza Place That’s Still Open When I’m Drunk

Apparently people got really up in arms when the price of a slice of pizza went up from $2.50 to $2.75. Now it’s time to get militant.

GG’s rant: So, you want me to pay $3 a slice now? Is that how we’re going to play this game? This is complete bullshit, and imma lay it all out for ya, yo.

5 years ago, I used to eat Pie R every freaking day. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. A little while after that, I worked there, and saw the conditions the pizza was made in, and the cleanliness and working habits of the staff, and I still ate there. But the past year or two, you’ve disappointed me. Your bacon baked potato pizza? Still quite yummy, but not as good as years past. Why not? It’s all in the crust.

In the days of yonder, Pie R crust used to be hand rolled, with a nice spiral edge. Sometimes, it would come out as a giant monstrosity that would consume half the slice. Other times, it would be a crunchy delight. Now it’s just a machine that creates a unified, boring crust. If I wanted boring shit like that, I’d head next door to Pizza Pizza. From Pie R, I want pizza with character. You put ridiculous toppings on your pizza, and the crust should match.

$3 a slice?  Maybe. Just step up your game, and I might switch back to eating your pies regularly. For now, it’s the Pendulum for me, because Kai heats up a friggin’ ahma~azzzing italian sausage lasagna. [Ed. note: I also assemble a mean sandwich.]

Pendulum is the best place to eat on campus. Period. Yes, we’re fucking biased—Kai works there [Ed. note: which does not necessarily mean I have positive reviews], Taylor eats there 5x a week, and Gossip Guy gets drunk there. However, despite their kickass tuna sandwiches, they only made something along the lines of ~$2000 profit last year. For the ENTIRE YEAR. Since the AMS is made up of blood-thirsty, greedy, proletariat-crushing capitalists (though the Pendulum itself is actually composed mostly of hippies—real hippies, not student activists), prices are going up, on average, 8%. Profits must be had! That quesadilla is too affordable!

On a more realistic note, a half-and-half combo from the deli case or a T-Bird Breakfast Awesomeness, which most of you cheap bastards were getting anyway, has only increased in price by 50 cents. Cheapest items on the menu = still affordable. CASE CLOSED.

Other AMS Food Outlets

Bernoulli’s Bagels – 4% increase. BRING BACK THE APPLE CINNAMON CREAM CHEESE! And while you’re at it, could we get a vegan spread that doesn’t taste like warmed-over ass?

Burger Bar – 4.5% increase. AMS employees should stop bitching at Nancy (the Food & Beverages Mgr) about the lack of “healthier” choices when they spend all their meal vouchers at the Burger Bar. We have no idea how Elin Tayyar is so slim while eating there every day. (Bath of virgin blood?)

Outdoor BBQ – 5% increase. Just continuing the trend of charging more than the Burger Bar for the same burgers. But smokier, and they don’t give you weird looks when you ask for, let us say, double bacon, double cheese, double patty…

The Moon – 4% increase. Has anyone ever successfully eaten a complete Combo C in one sitting? [Ed. note: I didn’t even know this existed.] On a more relevant note, if the Moon doesn’t use MSG, why are there bags of it available in AMS Stores?!?

To combat the Hella Sexy Tax, you’ll be getting a HST rebate cheque, like your GST rebate cheques. However, the AMS is also issuing coupons for all the AMS food outlets in this year’s edition of the AMS Insider. So when they inevitably have boxes and boxes of them leftover, you can harvest them for extra coupons. Scavenging!